If you’re a woodworker, you know the number one rule (after “don’t cut your finger off”) is to measure twice, and cut once. As a woodworking hobbyist, I have rushed a project many times and mis-measured a piece of wood. The idea here is pretty simple: Once you cut, you cannot add material back on if you make a mistake.
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “God gave us two ears and one mouth, so listen before you speak!” When we are communicating with our spouse it is most likely that your default position is to express yourself or your point of view. It is less likely that your default position is to listen to the expressions and point(s) of view from the other person.
Listening is mandatory for a compelling relationship. It’s a skill that can be mastered if you practice. It’s not something that is an innate trait in people. Listening is hard, and it’s fundamentally an act of love.
As a therapist my primary posture is to be a listener. I am primarily listening for three things: What is being said; How it is being said; and finally, what is not being said. It’s been my experience that when couples are able to practice hearing these three things, their connection and communication soars.
Outside of my office about 30 yards away are two sets of train tracks. About a half mile away to the south there is a railroad crossing, and the same distance North there is a massive concrete bridge that trains pass beneath. In the Spring and Fall I love to open the windows in my office. The birds and wind provide a soothing backdrop to the sometimes painful and heartbreaking stories being told in my office. But when the train comes by, it can be so loud that I almost can’t hear myself if I begin to speak.
I’ve been in this particular office suite for almost 10 years. I’ve become so familiar with the space that I know most of the sounds. With the train, I know when it is coming well before my clients know. The conductor blows it’s horn hundreds of yards before the crossing to the South. It’s a faint sound. Much like a Childs play horn being blown under 100 blankets in the next room. To the North the trains rumble under the bridge causing my office building to creak in certain places that only a train disrupts. These noises are not there unless you know they are there.
There are many times that I will stand up to close the windows, and 5-10 seconds later the train passes by. Sometimes my clients will say, “Oh, that’s why you closed the window!” Or, “How did you know the train was coming? Is it on a schedule or something?”
I love this question becomes a place for my client(s) and I to pause and talk about the concept and practice of listening. Because I have been in this office for over 11,000 hours of counseling with clients, I have learned to listen for what the client can’t hear or what they don’t know to listen for.
There are several application points here. First, what the client can’t hear. The client cannot hear the train because they are, rightfully, caught up in their own story and life. The drama of their own lives is louder than the drama of the world around them. If I were to not close the window, the train would only be recognized by my clients when the noise became too obvious to ignore. And some wouldn’t even hear it at all! While there may be nothing wrong with this, it just goes to show me/you/us that sometimes we are so caught up in our own world that we scarcely recognize the world around us.
I had gone through a painful business divorce with my two business partners in the Summer of 2019 that included veiled threats, relationship sabotage, Google reviews impersonating me, and an eviction notice from my partners. We’d worked hard over the previous 4 years building a counseling center together, and despite a myriad of challenges, we were finally getting serious traction on our vision. And then, poof. It was all gone. In it’s place were feelings of loss and betrayal. What was once a partnership of friends was now adversarial.
Perhaps the entire time, but certainly over the previous 18 months, my bride Stephanie, had been warning me about things she was seeing that did not appear to be well at work. I ignored these concerns from her. I defended my partnership with these guys. I rebuffed her feedback. I couldn’t, ahem, wouldn’t, listen to her because it was going to be too costly for what I was hoping to build at work. I did not welcome her feedback, instead dismissed it thinking that she really didn’t understand my partners and what we were doing. I even managed to ignore that me getting shingles in 2018 was a direct result of the toxic stress in my business partnership.
Only after I packed up my office at the center just 3 days after receiving the eviction notice did I realize she was right and on my side the whole time. I was deaf and blind to her counsel.
Fast forward three years and it’s the summer of 2022. Having left my I’d rebuilt my counseling practice from ground zero, made it through covid, suffered through two horrific knee injuries to our two oldest boys, and graduated our oldest into college. I was exhausted. It was written all over my face, and body.
Sitting on our screen porch one afternoon, Stephanie looked at me and asked, “are you ok?” I don’t remember what I said, or what she said after that, but I knew the answer was a resounding “No, I am not ok.”
I heard her concern, and acted on it. I made arrangements with my practice, clients, and schedule to take an emergency extended leave from work. Over the next 5 weeks I spent time in the hay fields of our families farm in South Arkansas, in the mountains of Montana, and at home with my kids who I had been neglecting in the name of work and provision. I met with a Spiritual Director, disconnected from social media, email, text messages, and consumeristic endeavors. I fell in love with riding bikes again. I hiked, sweated, cried, and journaled. It was a soul cleansing time that I will forever be grateful for.
And it was all because of someone, not me, who was listening to my life. Stephanie listened to what I was talking about, how I was talking about it, and what I was not talking about. She stood in the gap for me because I wasn’t listening to the exhaustion of my life.
Without someone else pointing these blind (or deaf) spots out in us, we will continue to live as though we know best. We all live our lives in varying degrees of echo chambers. Our internal relationship with ourself is the primary example of this. It is easy to get stuck with a familiar thought, behavior, and belief pattern that left unnamed will only continue to reinforce itself. We can sometimes be our own worst enemy, and I believe it starts with our inability and/or refusal to listen.
There are two glorious questions I have for you about this story. Who is giving you the gift of listening to your life? And Who is it that you are giving the gift of listening to their life?
I can think of no better picture of marriage than a husband and wife who are giving each other the gift of listening.
